The Victory (69 page)

‘I don't know, my love, I wasn't here,' Héloïse laughed, and
unwound one of Sophie's arms to make room for Thomas,
who was waiting for his turn, his light-brown forelock
hanging over his brown eyes, like a patient pony. She picked
him up and kissed his cheek, and he turned away in embar
rassment, and then turned back to kiss her heartily on the
ear, surprising both of them, and buried his face in her neck
as everyone laughed.

The maids came forward to curtsey and smile, and last of
all Monsieur Barnard came out, blinking like a cat in the sun
shine, holding a wooden spoon upright in one hand like a sceptre.

‘
You were away far too long, my lady,' he said as Héloïse
shook hands with him, and then added with a happy sigh,
‘but the young carrots are perfect: you shall have them
glazed, with a hint of nutmeg; and the strawberries are just
ready. Roast duckling and strawberry tarts, and pink lamb
cutlets, and syllabub.' His love always expressed itself in
culinary terms.

‘And what have you all been doing while I was away?’

Héloïse asked as she walked into the house, Sophie still wound
round her waist and Thomas in her arms.

‘
I've been teaching Thomas to read,' Sophie said proudly, looking up with a proprietorial smile at her baby. 'He's very
good, Maman. He has got nearly all the way through
The
Little Lottery Book,
and he can read two pages of
The History
of the Robins,
if I help him along a bit.'

‘
Well, that is very good indeed,' Héloïse said gravely. 'He
must be very clever.’

Flon, coming up behind her, murmured. 'He doesn't really
read it, you know. She's read the story to him so often, the
little dear, he has learnt it off by heart, and recites it to her,
and turns the page just at the right moment, from seeing her do it.'

‘Maman, where is Mathilde? Isn't she coming home?'

‘
She's gone to Brighton with Lady Chelmsford, who very
kindly invited her to stay with her all summer. She asked me,
too, but I wanted to come home.'

‘
I'm glad you did,' Sophie said judiciously. 'It isn't the
same without you. But isn't Mathilde married yet?'

‘Not yet,' Héloïse said, suppressing a smile.

‘
She's getting very old,' Sophie said sadly. 'Didn't the
gentlemen like her?'

‘
They liked her very much, and danced with her just as
they ought, but none of them was just right. One must be
very careful, my Sophie, when choosing a husband, for once
chosen, one cannot change him, and he must last for ever.’

Sophie considered this. 'Yes,' she said at length, 'and she will have to find one that doesn't mind her having red hair. Because Alice said not every gentleman can fancy red hair, and Nan said
she
ought to know about gentlemen's fancies,
because she had turned so many of them, so it must be true,
musn't it, Maman?’

Héloïse laughed, and kissed Thomas and put him down.
She pushed a lock of Sophie's hair off her brow, and said,
‘When Mathilde meets the right man, my love, he won't even
notice what colour her hair is.’

Sophie rejected this firmly. 'I don't think
anyone
could
look at Mathilde and not notice,' she said.

Left alone at Wolvercote after the funeral, when both Héloïse
and Edward had departed, Lucy had enough to do to keep
her from sinking into a lethargy; for although the routines of the house and estate continued, uninterrupted by the death of
a master who had always preferred to leave their running to hirelings, there always seemed to be someone asking for an
interview with her. For the most part, they simply wanted
confirmation from her that they were doing the right thing;
others wanted an excuse to recount to her their own
memories of the late lord. Lucy was surprised to find in how
much affection his employees had held him. She had always
assumed that as he had been a careless and largely absent
landlord, he would be little missed; and this ability of his to
inspire love in those who served him shed a new light on his
character.

Others wanted her support for some long-delayed pet
scheme to be introduced.

‘
His late lordship never cared for pineapples, my lady, but I
always felt as how the glass house on the south wall of the
west orchard would make an excellent pinery.'

‘
If you was thinking of putting any capital into the estate,
my lady, there's that meadow down beyond the woods over to
Pixey that ought to be drained and put under the plough. It's never been but sour grazing, and I mentioned it many a time
to his late lordship, but he was such a one for tradition,
begging your pardon, my lady, that he never would hear of it.’

There were also a great many visits from the family lawyer,
and his business wearied Lucy most, for the arcane language
of the law seemed to her to serve no other purpose than to
make work for Mr Beguid and his like; and the number of
documents involved in the simple transfer of title and estate
from father to son only confirmed her view. Beguid himself
was incapable of speaking plain English, and even when
requested by Lucy to rephrase some obscurity so that she
could understand it, it took many attempts before he could
tell her that the capital settled on her in the will would
provide her with an income more than equal to the allowance
Chetwyn had made her during his lifetime; or that while she
had been named as sole guardian of her children, the office of
trustee was to be shared between her brother Edward and
Chetwyn's cousin Cavendish, his nearest male relative.

From these importunities Lucy turned for relief to the
undemanding company of her horses, and accompanied only
by Parslow, she spent long hours in the saddle trying, as
Parslow opined to Docwra, to tire herself out. Both Docwra
and Miss Trotton tried to interest her in her children, who
were bewildered and upset by the disappearance from their
world, both of the father who, in the last two years, had made
himself familiar and beloved, and their playmate Robert. But
Lucy did not have anything in her to give the children. On the
few occasions when she came face to face with them, the
effort of speaking to them seemed to make her both restless
and weary.

‘
She'll come to it in time,' Parslow said wisely. 'It's too
soon yet. She still can't bear anyone near her.'

‘
She doesn't mind having
you
around,' Docwra said, with
faint resentment that it was to her groom and not her maid
that Lucy turned for comfort.

‘
That's because she knows she doesn't have to talk to me,' Parslow said. 'You women are always wanting to know how
she feels, and whether she's all right, and whether she'd like a
glass of wine or a warmer shawl. Always demanding.'

‘
We're naturally concerned for her,' Docwra said with
dignity.

‘
I know that, Bessie, and she knows it; but you don't
understand, she just can't bear questions. It's all she can do,
just to keep her head up, without having to answer questions.'

‘
Well, what do you talk to her about?' Docwra asked. 'For I
see you chatting away, all right, when you come in from a
ride.’

Though he had never married, Parslow understood child
ren very well, from having spent a lifetime with horses. He
knew that what both wanted was certainties; and in her
double bereavement, Lucy was very childlike. 'I just tell her
things,' he said.

Despite what she had said to Héloïse and Edward, Lucy did
go back to London before travelling to Yorkshire. The
immediate reason was that Captain Haworth was going back
to sea, and wanted to hand over Hippolyta, and London was
more convenient for him than Wolvercote; but underneath
was a desire, which she was faintly surprised to discover in
herself, to see the house again.

Hicks was pathetically glad to receive her, and it was only
after a day or two that she learned from Parslow that he was in fear of the house being given up, and himself and the rest
of the London staff being turned off.

‘
But I should not have turned them off without making
sure they had a place,' Lucy said, puzzled. 'Surely they must
know that.'

‘
Yes, my lady,' Parslow said. 'They just don't want to leave
your service.'

‘
Oh,' said Lucy. It was another new thing to think about,
that her servants liked to serve her. 'Well, you may tell Hicks
that I don't mean to give up the house.'

‘
Yes, my lady,' Parslow said neutrally, but with an inward
hope that this might be a sign that deep down, below the
layers of grief and loneliness, she had not despaired of life.

Captain Haworth arrived from Portsmouth with Polly and
Africa, and the news that
Cetus
was all ready for sea again.

‘
I expect my orders will be waiting for me when I get back,
but I know what they are,' he said. 'I'm to go back to Colling
wood's squadron off Cadiz, to continue the blockade.'

‘
Poor Collingwood,' Lucy said with feeling. 'Not a day on
shore, not a moment's rest since the battle.' After Trafalgar,
fresh ships had been sent out from Gibraltar to reinforce the
Cadiz fleet, and Collingwood had transferred his flag from
Euryalus
to the ninety-eight-gun
Queen.
One by one the ships
damaged in the battle had been sent for refitting, giving their
captains the opportunity to go on shore and rest and recuper
ate, to sleep in a bed and eat fresh food; but Collingwood had remained on station without a break.

‘
And there's no likelihood of his hauling down his flag in
the immediate future, either,' Haworth said. 'Their Lordships
have said they can't spare him, so it looks like another year on
blockade, at least. The sweets of victory, you see,' he said with
an ironic smile. 'We have nothing more to fear from the
French by way of battle. Now we simply have to keep watch
over their ports and choke off their sea-trade. Dull work!’

Lucy eyed him speculatively. 'It sounds as though you had fallen out of love with the sea.'

‘
Oh, never that,' Haworth assured her, 'but I begin to
think I may have reached the moment for coming ashore. I
think of poor Collingwood, you know, and his daughters
whom he loves and hasn't seen in so many years, and I don't
want to go the same way myself.'